Flaming
by KrystalBlaze - Jerikor
Summary: An Obi-Wan vignette. As flames devour his Master's body, Obi-Wan remembers all that has happened... and all that could have been.


Hola, my friends. I know you're all looking for an update to Breathe, but it's on hold again for my lack of reviews. *hint hint* But you've been fantastic so far.  
  
Here's a short and hopefully sweet vignette about Obi-Wan. Enjoy!  
  
~ ~ = italics  
  
FLAMING  
Standing here, I remember.  
  
Remembering is so beautiful in its pain. The memories that now rampage my mind are painful, yet so beautiful in their sweetness.  
  
How can this be? How can he be gone? Everything he ever promised, everything he ever wanted. it's gone now. I watch the flames burn. I can see the promised and hopes floating aimlessly away with the smoke into the Naboo night sky. I want to rush up there with them, but knowing full well that I cannot.  
  
He would want me to go on. He made me promise to train the boy at my side.  
  
But he promised me. He promised me so many years ago he would stand at my side as I was knighted. He hoped we'd go on missions together. He promised. He hoped. I stare as the smoke billows up, the flames roaring. Promises that can't be kept, I think. Promises that will waste away with all the other lost promises that humans and other species make that can't be kept.  
  
The flames dance around his body. I can smell the burning flesh through the Naboo air. The wood is being eaten, as if being consumed by some rampaging darkness that will not stop. For a second, I want to stop this event. I want to scream and find some way to stop the flames from devouring the body of my Master. I lower my head, my eyes haunted and alone.  
  
The moment passes. The thought of the wood being consumed by darkness fills my mind. ~Everything has been consumed by darkness. He's gone~. And then the thought seems so stupid and confusing that I want to laugh.  
  
Remembering the past. If only I could see the good in my memories. I want to see our good times; I want to see our laughs and triumphs. I want to see when he took me as his Padawan. I want to see the look on his face when I was seventeen and played a joke on him. I want to see his laugh. I could always make him laugh with my biting humor, as he called it.  
  
But the memories that invade my mind now are those of darkness. I see the pain on his face as the lightsaber runs through his abdomen. It's the only image I see now. His piercing blue eyes flashing in agony and the way his chest crumpled over the lightsaber. His mouth is stretched open in pain, his voice rasping as he struggles to take in precious air.  
  
The flames devour the wood. Blackness is consuming the light.  
  
The face of the Sith that killed him drifts across the meadows of my mind. The black and red pain, the hideous horns. And even more hideous, the sneer that crosses his face as he kills my Master. There is only darkness for this one. The Force shimmering around him is thick with sadistic pleasure and a boiling hatred for me, for the Jedi. I can feel the thickness, and in that thickness I can't feel the Force as strongly as I am used to. ~How can you hate what you don't know?~ I want to yell at him.  
  
He would want me to go on. He would want me to remember the good. He would want me to forget his promises and hopes; to exchange them for my own promises and hopes with the boy standing at my side, his face tear streaked.  
  
I don't want to exchange anything. I want my Master back. I want him to stand at my side as I am knighted, as I am properly released from his tutelage. Again I lower my head, the tears welling up.  
  
Flaming. Everything I once knew has burned out. My Master is gone. I must now build my own landing, my own basis and with that support Anakin Skywalker.  
  
But how can I? I'm not ready. I'm just not ready to train him. It's not my job. It's Qui-Gon's. He's supposed to train this Chosen One. That's what he wanted. I didn't want this. I don't want it now. How can I take his place? No one can give Anakin what Qui-Gon could have. No one has what Qui-Gon has. No knows what Qui-Gon had that made him so special and so adapt to training. No one knows. No one will ever know, not even the person who knew him best: me.  
  
It's his eyes I remember as I stand watching the flames. Their cold blueness. His look was so stunning he halted many in his tracks with one glare. I was on the receiving end more times than I can count. What many people didn't know was that gaze was majesty in its warmth. What Qui-Gon loved, he loved with his entire being. His eyes were a reflection into his soul, and the warmth he showed to me was priceless.  
  
Remember the good times, I tell myself. If I don't, I won't be able to go on.  
  
~I have to go on.~  
  
There is no emotion; there is peace.  
  
There is no ignorance; there is knowledge.  
  
There is no passion; there is serenity.  
  
There is no death; there is the Force.  
  
Suddenly a breeze passes by me. I glance around. No one is affected. No tree is stirring. No leaf is blowing. The flames jump in one place.  
  
~There is no death; there is the Force.  
  
There is no death.~  
  
I see the flames now. I hear Qui-Gon's voice as he recited that mantra so many years ago to me. The Jedi Code.  
  
~There is no death.~  
  
"There is no death," I whisper to the wind.  
  
Qui-Gon isn't gone. The breeze dancing around my face is speaking to me. He'll be here, always. He promised me he would be there when I was knighted.  
  
I imagine myself, kneeling in front of the Council. And then I imagine myself looking back to the door.  
  
~He will be.~ 


End file.
